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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Derulbaskul" data-source="post: 4931624" data-attributes="member: 1581">@OP: I originally hated FR4E but subsequently became a convert and am really enjoying it... but I still hate the map. There is simply no excuse for how bad that map is.I tried re-reading some of the older novels and I just couldn't do it. I gave almost all of them away. Elaine Cunningham is an exception and it almost always good.Salvatore has become worse. IMO, Crystal Shard was his best work by a large margin. His later stuff, particular in the past few years, has become shark-jumpingly self-indulgent. He reminds me of George Lucas: he gets some success and then introduces ewoks, gungans and forces a relatively competently actor to completely suck as Anakin. Salvatore's stuff includes horrible names and verbal tics that really are Lucas-level self-indulgence. Even the fight scenes that he was previously rightly commended for bringing to life now seem to be self-indulgent (perhaps I am overusing that phrase but it just seems to sum up his work) filler to cover for the bad dialogue and plot.Of the newer stuff I think most of the authors on the roster now are rather good but I strongly recommend avoiding Bruce Cordell. In the Plague of Spells, for example, he has this awakened golem-thingie leave a "touching" farewell note. I don't think that was his largest "author crime" that he committed but it was one of the few pieces that I haven't erased from my memory... yet.Rich Baker, however, is good. Coincidentally he seems to be the only WotC designer still capable of writing a good adventure, again IMO (obviously).I'm drawing a blank on the name of the author of the Erevis/Sembia novels so will edit it in later. He is a really good writer and definitely destined for something better than churning out shared world fiction (however, he does that very well). And, again, I think most of the other writers on the roster at present are really good. WotC seem to have almost got their act together with their FR author roster, although I am amazed that Bruce Cordell continues to write (how I wish he would go back to writing good adventures; it's been a long time since The Gates of Firestorm Peak, Return to the Tomb of Horrors and The Shattered Circle!).</blockquote>

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